Q&A: God’s Intervention in the World
God’s Intervention in the World
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I wanted to ask the Rabbi about his view of God’s intervention in the world.
In lessons 5 and 6 of the lecture series “God and the World,” the Rabbi reaches the conclusion that there is no intervention by God in the world because there are no gaps in nature—if we assume that the laws of nature operate, then it is impossible, or there is no reason, to assume that God intervenes in the world.
What does the Rabbi say about the mind-body problem? After all, if a person has free will (which is an assumption the Rabbi accepts), then there is essentially some kind of intervention from another world—one that is not measured by physical metrics—within the physical world. I (as a spiritual entity) cause things in the physical world to move?
If the Rabbi holds this view, isn’t there some inconsistency in it? On the one hand, the reason the Rabbi rejects the possibility that God intervenes in reality is that the Rabbi assumes that there is nothing but the physical world, and on the other hand the Rabbi argues that there is free will?
Or perhaps, on the contrary, maybe one could argue that specifically there—at the point of transition between the personal spiritual world and the personal physical world—that is precisely where God can intervene, specifically in human choices? (Something the Rabbi said is obviously not possible….)
Answer
This question has already been asked here several times. Briefly: human will and freedom are part of nature, even if not part of physics. We plainly see that the will is free and that it intervenes in nature and affects it. So I have no problem with that. If I saw intervention by God, I would have no problem with that either, but I see no indication of it whatsoever. The world appears to operate according to the laws of nature and our choices, nothing more.
Discussion on Answer
Decisor,
The faculty meant to perceive such things is not the eye but the intellect. Will is an inseparable part of human nature, not some transcendent thing that “intervenes” in the nature of the muscles.
If our perception of the effect of will is an illusion, why shouldn’t we conclude that your conclusion too—that it is an illusion—is also an illusion?
I didn’t really come to determine what is correct.
I came to reject the emotional perception that is accepted by the general public and that Michi takes as a fact of nature.
There is no such fact of nature.
And reason says that it is more likely that the experience of will is a result, just as muscle movement is a result.
The cause of the experience of will is not something experienced—that is, it is not something conscious.
Our eyes do not see the intervention of will in nature.
The experience of will is aroused following brain activity. And that same brain activity also causes the muscles to act.
The correlation creates the illusion that the will is the cause. But that is only an illusion.